Alex Van Halen has paid tribute to his younger brother Eddie, the guitar hero who died earlier in the week following a lengthy battle with cancer.
“Hey Ed. Love you. See you on the other side. Your brother, Al,” reads the Van Halen drummer’s message, which is accompanied with a cute black and white photo of the pair as young boys.
We received this from Alex Van Halen… "Hey Ed. Love you. See you on the other side. Your brother, Al”#EddieVanHalen #EddieVanHalenRIP pic.twitter.com/dunXGiXhkK
— Van Halen News Desk (@VanHalenNews) October 8, 2020
Alex, now 67, formed the core of the band with his brother back in the early ‘70s. The siblings were born in the Netherlands, but settled later in California, where they set about starting a group that would make history. Initially, Eddie played the piano and drums, but his shift to the guitar proved a masterstroke.
Since his explosion onto the rock scene with the 1978’s Van Halen album and his virtuosic instrumental “Eruption,” many musicians and critics have pegged Van Halen as one of the greatest to plug in a six-string.
As a drummer, Alex doesn’t get the headlines but he’s no slouch. A double-kick master, he’s regarded as one of the finest drummers in the rock business.
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Following Eddie’s death, at the age of 65, Alex is the only member who has been with the band throughout its existence, and played on all 12 studio albums.
Meanwhile, frontman Sammy Hagar and founding bass player Mike Anthony have remembered the guitar great in a piece to camera.
In the new video, Hagar says EVH’s death was like “getting hit by a freaking Mack truck” and they were “devastated” at the sad news.
Van Halen died Tuesday (Oct. 6), following a decades long battle with cancer.
Hagar and Anthony left the group in controversial circumstances, but they’re bandmates once again in Sammy Hagar and the Circle. The pair recorded the video tribute during the band’s rehearsal on Catalina Island, California.
During the show, Hagar invited the audience to take a moment of silence to remember EVH, after which they launched into the anthemic “Right Now,” a single from the 1991 album For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.
“I’ll tell you, a Van Halen song never felt so hard to sing and play in my life,” Hagar says in the clip.
The video is captioned by a comment from the two former VH rockers: “We love you Eddie. The music will live forever.”